"I'm not going to defend critics. The fact is, I don't know what
purpose they serve. But whatever it is, they have the right to serve it in any
man's theatre, however disastrous the consequences. ...

"Somerset Maugham, in The Summing Up, was asked why he quit writing
for the theatre. He said it was too difficult to please both the scullery maid
sitting in the third balcony and the critic for the London Times. 'I believe I
can write for either one,' he declared, 'but I can't please both. Their tastes
are too dissimilar.' ...

"Hokum and roughhouse laughter have virtually disappeared from the
stage. There are scores of plays about miscegenation, ... the beat generation,
dypsomaniacs and hopheads, but there is very little fun left on the stage. I
believe the absence of robust laughter is partially responsible for the present
condition of the theatre. Most of the gaiety has been taken out of it, and it
has been removed by the critics.

"One prominent reviewer recently wrote about a play called Make A
Million, starring Sam Levene. This is what he wrote: 'This is not so much a
review as a confession. I spent a good part of last evening laughing at a very
bad play.'

"There you have it. This critic laughed all evening, but finally
decided it was 'a very bad play.' All it was supposed to do was make people
laugh, and it succeeded. They didn't announce that they were bringing in King
Lear or Death of a Salesman. All they promised to deliver was a funny
comedy--but that wasn't good enough for this critic."

"After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the
inexpressible is music."

- Aldous Huxley

"The Dark Side of the Force is a pathway to many abilities some
consider to be unnatural."

- Darth Sidious.

"You should view the world as a conspiracy run by a very
closely-knit group of nearly omnipotent people, and you should think of those
people as yourself and your friends."

- Robert Anton Wilson

"I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer
god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible
gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours."

- Stephen F Roberts

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American
public."

- H.L. Mencken

"There comes a time when every man feels the urge to spit on his
hands, hoist the black flag, and start slitting throats."

- H.L. Mencken

"We are the product of hours logged in the kmart parking lot
listening to Kasey Kasem while mom gets the goods. Looking out from playpens as
dads and uncles put the needle back to the first cut, side B. Emotional rescue
from the single speaker on the ceiling of the school bus, drowning out the
screams. Wrestling sound from fingers and strings. Hundreds of perfectly good,
clear summer days spent jamming in the moldy basements. Loving and making the
soundtracks to kisses, trips, and fits. Markers imprinted on our personal
timelines. So here we are. How can we help it? We're geeks. Music freaks. We
have no choice. Our priorities are all messed up, and we know they'll stay that
way."

"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long
plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs.There's also a negative side."

- Hunter S. Thompson

"It is in the religion of ignorance that tyranny begins."

- Benjamin Franklin

"'Freaking out' is a process whereby an individual casts off
outmoded and restricting standards of thinking, dress and social etiquette in
order to express creatively his relationship to his immediate environment and
the social structure as a whole"

- Frank Zappa

"Free downloads didn't begin the dismantle of the record industry.
GREED did. Free downloads just allow music lovers the ability to preview the
crap record labels have been forking out for years and say, 'hey, I don't want
this for $20.00."

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or
values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized
violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

"Comfort seduces us into repetition, and if we keep doing what we're
doing, we keep getting what we're getting. Although that may allow us to
develop certain skills, it doesn't lead us to transcend our limitations. It
works fine for learning to play the piano, not so well for creating great
symphonies."

"The most difficult thing in the world is to reveal yourself, to
express what you have to. As an artist, I feel that we must try many things --
but above all, we must dare to fail. You must have the courage to be bad -- to
be willing to risk everything to really express it all."

- John Cassavetes

"The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or
values or religion but rather by its superiority in applying organized
violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do."

- Samuel P. Huntington

"You live fruitfully in tension. To create...is to be under tension.
Paradise is a state of inertia where nothing happens. It is a form of death.
Tension is necessary. Once it's over you drop dead in six months."

- Arthur Miller

"A Musician's Day

An artist must regulate his life. Here is my precise daily schedule. I rise at
7:18; am inspired from 10:30 to 11:47. I lunch at 12:11 and leave the table at
12:14. A healthy horse-back ride on my property from 1:19 to 2:35. Another
round of inspiration from 3:12 to 4:07.

"On the one hand a tottering world in flight, betrothed to the
glockenspiel of hell, on the other hand: new men. Rough, bouncing, riding on
hiccups...Let each man proclaim: there is a great negative work of destruction
to be accomplished. We must sweep and clean..."

“Rock n’ roll does for music what a motorcycle club at
full throttle does for a quiet afternoon. The results bear passing resemblance
to Hitler
mass meetings.”

- Time Magazine, 1956

"I never met an asshole in the record business I
didn’t like.”

- Irving Azoff

“The whole music business in the United States is based
on numbers, based on unit sales and not on quality. It’s not based on beauty,
it’s
based on hype and it’s based on cocaine. It’s based on giving presents of large
packages of dollars to play records on the air.”

- Frank Zappa

“Modern music is people who can't think signing artists
who can't write songs, to make records for people who can’t hear.”

- Frank Zappa

“When you hear my records today...you hear a vanilla
sounding artist with no black inflection, although I was trying to imitate what
I
heard.”

- Pat Boone

“You go through stages where you wonder whether you are
Christ, or just looking for him.”

- David Bowie

"You’ve gotta be business savvy really, or else you
get the piss taken out of you.”

- Melanie B, Spice Girls

“That’s not easy to find in a corporate world, somebody
who cares about music.”

- Michael Penn, musician

“I’m a snake oil salesman as much as anyone else, but I
try to keep something for myself...I don’t kiss the world’s ass.”

- Freedy Johnston

“Anybody that forms a group, writes songs and releases
records and says they don’t care if people like them are complete liars.”

- James Dean Bradfield, Manic St. Preachers

"I mean the Cranberries could go on and take a shit
and the people would probably love it.”

- Jon Spencer

“Music is a big machine that would go on with or without
me.”

- Rob Thomas, Matchbox 20

“Music should be about bastardization.” - John
McCrae, Cake

“Rap fans are quick to forget what they appreciated just
last year.”

- Trugoy, De La Soul

“To sustain hatred is a very difficult thing to do, year
after year. It’s exhausting.”

- Nick Cave

“The problem with alternative radio is that it has no
fiber at all, and is giving itself it’s own enema.”

- Mike Halloran, former KUPR PD

“If we do our job...Music’s not black or white, it’s
green.”

- Jim Caparro, PGD

“Going to radio with a rap record prior to going to the
consumer is like having no foreplay with your girlfriend.”

- Lyor Cohen, Def Jam/RAL

“We’ll take advantage of the changes going on in the
music business because we’re lean and mean.”

- Miles Copeland, IRS Records

“That’s the shame about Miles Copeland; he’s evil, but
he’s got a heart of gold.”

- Dave Wakeling, General Public

“We are the Beavis and Butt-head generation, whether we
want to recognize it or not.”

- Billy Corgan, Smashing Pumpkins

“You can’t control the public from itself. If they get
good tickets, they scalp them. If they get bad tickets, they bitch.”

- Fred Rosen, Ticketmaster

“People don’t want to see a whole lot of crap anymore
than they want to see one piece of crap.”

- Wayne Forte, ITC

“American music is something the rest of the world wants
to listen to. Our job is to make sure they pay for it.”

- Jason Berman, RIAA

“You’ve got to feel comfortable with people telling you
your shit stinks.”

- Andre Harrell, Uptown Entertainment

“My bass player came up to me and said, ‘Sarah, when are
you going to start being a bitch?’ And I said, ‘That’s why I have a record company.”

- Sarah McLachlan

"I hate to say this, but [in the late '70’s] it was
like the smart people liked punk and the dumb people liked Journey.”

- Howie Klein, President Reprise Records

“Kill all the major record company presidents.”

Howie Klein, 1978... KSAN Radio Show "The Outcaste Hour"

"I’ve made hundreds of legendary records that people
talk about that didn’t sell.”

- Jerry Wexler

“Without freedom of expression, good taste means
nothing.”

- Neil Young

“Listen, the easiest way to get laid by a girl, or get
rid of her, is to write a song about her.”

- David Crosby

“Without music, the greatest marketing plans in the whole
world don’t mean shit.”

“You’re a local band until you get a record contract,
then all of a suddent Bruce Springsteen is your competition."

- Sammy Llana, The Bodeans

“I don’t listen to music, I hate all music.”

- Johnny Rotten

“I don’t think anybody steals anything; all of us
borrow.”

- BB King

“He took my music, but he gave me my name.”

- Muddy Waters on Mick Jagger

“If KISS is a dinosaur, damn straight I’d rather be that
than a mouse.”

- Gene Simmons, KISS

“We’re the McDonalds of rock. Were always there to
satisfy, and a billion served.”

- Paul Stanley, KISS

“The way I see it, rock n’ roll is folk music.”

- Robert Plant

“I wish there had been a music business 101 course I
could have taken.”

- Kurt Cobain

“In Los Angeles, they don’t want you to fail, they want
you to die.”

- David Geffen

“I sent a demo of the band Confederate Fagg to an A&R
friend at Sony. I asked him what he thought. He said, "Don't know yet. Let
me see what my boss thinks."

- Dave: Kathoyd

"If you are still at the same point you were after
six albums, and all of them came out on a major label, I don't want to hear
about how 'the label didn't understand us,' or 'our management didn't make us a
priority.' If after that time you are still at the same level, either you suck,
or people do not like you."

- Anonymous

"On what label records are on is as important as the color of my
underwear."

- Dan Lifetime in Appeal zine

"A change of rulers is the joy of fools."

- Romanian proverb

"So many people are scared of their hearts. You don't have to eb
scared of your heart. You just have to find a new road."

- Iggy Pop

"The public will put up with anything except boredom."

- Verdi

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."

- Benjamin Franklin

"What else is human nature but a euphemism for inertia, cultural
conditioning, and what we are before we make something of ourselves?"

- Walter Kaufman

"He sings about love, women, things that are easy to communicate.
The Americans, the British, they sing about political and social troubles.
There is enough of that in our lives. Why do we want it from our singers as
well?"

- Franco Reali (BMG Italy) on Europop star Ramazzotti

"Mistrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful."

- Nietzsche

"I like nonsense, it wakes up the brain cells. Fantasy is a
necessary ingredient in living. It's a way of looking at life through the wrong
end of a telescope. Which is what I do, and that enables you to laugh at life's
realities."

- Dr. Seuss

"If you are looking for fairness, you've come to the wrong
universe."

- Dr. Edward Nather

"A hero is someone who rebels or seems to rebel against the facts
of existence and seems to conquer them."

- Jim Morrison

"The highest art is the art of living an ordinary life in an
extraordinary manner."

- Tibetan proverb

"[Music is] time made aesthetically perceptible."

- Herman Hesse

"To be is to be different."

- Gurdjieff

"[G]uys now that run record companies, they can't keep time to a
march."

- Ray Charles

"Happiness is a skill, not an acquisition. It is a choice you
make in each moment, not a state you one day achieve."

"If there's light in the soul, there'll be beauty in the person
If there's beauty in the person there'll be harmony in the house If there's
harmony in the house there will be order in the nation If there's order in the
nation there'll be peace in the world"

- Chinese proverb

"A hero is someone who rebels or seems to rebel against the facts
of existence and seems to conquer them."

- Jim Morrison

"It's nice if you'e fourteen years old. I prefer to listen to
Dylan."

- George Harrison on Oasis, U2 and the Spice Girls.

"There is no excellent beauty that hath not some strangeness in
proportion."

"It gives me great pleasure indeed to see the stubbornness of an
incorrigible noncomformist warmly acclaimed."

- Albert Einstein

"The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the one."

- Mr. Spock

"If it sounds good, it must be good."

- Duke Ellington

"The chief enemy of creativity is 'good' taste."

- Picasso

"Only when something has become problematic to we start to ask
questions. Disagreement shakes us out of our slumbers and forces us to see our
own point of view through contrast with another person who does not share
it."

"Bah...dust isn't a bad thing. Besides having the taste of
ancient biscuit and the smell of an old book, it is the floating velvet which
softens hard surfaces, the fine dry wash which takes the garishness out of
crude colour schemes...Who than can despise it..."

"The conscientious objectors to modern music will, of course,
attempt everything in the way of counterrevolution. Musicians will not admit
that we are making music; they will say that we are interested in superficial
effects, or, most, are imitating Oriental or primitive music. New and original
sounds will be labeled as "noise." But our common answer to every
criticism must be to continue working and listening, making music with its
materials, sound and rhythm, disregarding the cumbersome, top-heavy structure
of musical prohibitions."

- John Cage (1939)

"If you were ever happy all the time, you wouldn't be human,
you'd be a game show host."

"Our basic experience of consciousness is passivity, which is
another name for boredom. Boredom is a state of being from which one finds it
difficult to escape into other states, a self-isolating anxiety, like a turtle
on its back."

- Colin Wilson, Origins of the Sexual Impulse (1963)

"The sane person pretends not to be egocentric, and pretends not
to notice other people are egocentric, and dislikes people who do not pretend
these things."

- Colin Wilson, Origins of the Sexual Impulse (1963)

"It is better to make a piece of music than perform one, better
to perform one than listen to one, better to listen to one that misuse it as a
means of distraction, entertainment, or acquisition of "culture."

- John Cage

which means, in effect, that someone feels he is being persecuted when
the people who are persecuting him don't think that he is. But, we haven't got
a word for the condition in which you are persecuting someone without realising
it, which I would have thought is as serious a condition as the other, and
certainly no less common."

"Human nature has been sold short...Man has a higher nature which
is just as insitinctive as his lower nature, and this higher nature includes
the need for meaningful work,for responsibility, for creativeness...for doing
what is worthwhile and for preferring to do it well."